Justin Hallman, 16, wanted to show how the United States is turning into a police state. He succeeded all too well in not only receiving an A+ in his American Government class but also allegedly a visit from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) confirming the very premise of his film posted on YouTube (below).
Hallman is a civil libertarian who supports Ron Paul, criticized an array of measures including the National Defense Authorization Act, crackdown on free speech, and attacks on the hacktivist group Anonymous. I have raised many of the same concerns, but I never got the interest that Hallman appears to have generated from the good people at the FBI.
Hallman’s house was promptly visited by two FBI agents, according to Hallman and his mother. The teenager stayed inside the door and refused to answer the door. His mother later called and was told by the agents that “We need to talk to your son.” They came back to the house and said that they wanted the teen to work for the FBI as an informant and spy on others, particularly Anonymous. He says that the agents closely questioned him about his support for Ron Paul as well as a conversation he once had with his teacher about the Illuminati secret society.
I have tried to find a response from the FBI denying the underlying facts of the boy’s account. If this visit occurred, I would have hoped to see a response on the conduct of these agents in allegedly seeking to turn a high school student into an informant or investigating such a film (including apparently interviewing his teachers).
“bettykath
1, September 13, 2012 at 12:43 pm
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/13444-tpp-a-worldwide-corporate-power-grab-of-enormous-proportions
The TPP is called a ‘trade agreement,’ but in actuality it is a long-dreamed-of template for implementing a binding system of global corporate governance as bold as anything the world’s wealthiest elite has attempted before. Of the 26 chapters under negotiation, only a few have to do directly with trade. The other chapters enshrine new rights and privileges for major corporations while weakening the power of nation states to oppose them. The TPP essentially proposes to establish a parallel system of justice where companies can sue countries in a tribunal of judges composed of unaccountable international trade lawyers with little to no process for appeal.”
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I’m just moving and reiterating Bettykath’s concern over this new treaty, I griped about it before (on another site I think) and I think it is an incredibly bad treaty. We have complained here before that there is a glaring lack of accountability for corporations and that there is a move to turn the wealth class and corporations into stateless agents that have little responsibility or accountability to any place they deem to land and squat until a better deal comes along.
This proposed treaty does exactly what the article states; it establishes a new parallel set of laws for corporations and leverages their power to levels that supersede the legal authority of governments. This is dangerous stuff. We have used the title “new feudalism” here before to describe the trend to a new economically driven social order resembling feudalism. That IMO is a correct observation. This takes it worldwide and gives it the veneer of legality. It’s one prong in a complete realignment of publicly certified power that separates the wealth/corporate class from the rest of the people and legal institutions that governments have set up. Bad stuff.
If you look at the big picture (which has taken decades to come to fruition) and many of the things talked about here:
the ubiquitous surveillance- now to be rolled out in real time very much in the mold of ‘Person of interest’;
the transformation of local police forces into an army that has access to military equipment and training including APCs, aircraft, guns/ammo, boats, crowd control equipment the safety of which is still debatable;
the expansion of new agencies and authorities such as the TSA; secret warrant courts and administrative subpoenas;
the control of most of the worlds wealth shared among a handful of corporations and banks;
the stateless nature of big business and its responsibility, even being subsidized by the affected nations as NAFTA did;
blah. blah, blah, I have to wonder if we missed the boat some years back and aside from complaining about it on blawgs it’s impossible to roll back.
A news article like the one that gave rise to the Professors article, even if its sourcing bona fides are questionable strikes a chord, a resonance built on enough knowledge about how dramatically the weight of power has been shifted and cemented into place, that makes it ‘feel’ true.
A police state mentality is arguably minor in comparison to controlling ~80% of the WMD worldwide market:
(Tom Engelhardt, Huffington Post). The answer is “d” …
Is JT publishing false information? Is this a phony story?
anonymously posted 1, September 13, 2012 at 11:20 am
Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on. -Robert Kennedy
Jude, I included the previous RFK quote in a letter to a local paper years ago. Let’s just say that it didn’t go unnoticed. I’m still taking flak for it.
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The National Police Union Refuses to Endorse Romney, First Such Refusal in 98 Years makes for interesting conversation.
They endorsed Bush II and McCain …
You are all my type of people and you are all the same. That’s the only difference!
this totally seems like a bogus story. is there any evidence for this other than the boy and his mother’s account?
anonymously posted,
“You were probably intellectualizing while in the womb.”
I was born playing chess. As you can imagine, this was quite awkward for the delivery room staff. Not to mention uncomfortable for mom.
@ roger gunderson:
i used to say the same thing about Ralph Nader. Now i realize “representative democracy” is a ruse and that no election is going to change anything for the better.
John, don’t sell yourself short, I’m sure you have gotten much more (secret) attention than the 16 year old boy.
Shrink games.
Frankly: You blew it when you suggested that Japanese-American WILLINGLY accepted internment camps. Yes, Americans who were not Japanese accepted them in the same way that Germans accepted Buchenwald, but the Japanese-Americans NEVER accepted being put in internment camps.
“To use this line of reasoning to justify trusting an otherwise untrustworthy source is also an inverse appeal to probability (also a logical fallacy) and an obtuse version of the faulty generalization of overwhelming exception (for every one Edwards story the qualifications of thousands of “bat boy” or “demon possesses blender” stories waters down the exception of your example – in this case the Edwards scenario – to the point it loses its utility).”
You were probably intellectualizing while in the womb. 🙂
(In the main, I happen to agree with you.)
As are you, “Matt Johnson.”
You’re special.
anonymously posted 1, September 13, 2012 at 3:53 pm
“Use your real name. Somebody told me to do that, and I did.”
That’s a good boy. Just keep marching in lockstep, Matt.
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I was E5 Navy. What are you?
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As I said, just keep marching, Matt.
What’s your name?
mespo727272 1, September 13, 2012 at 3:25 pm
anonymously posted:
“The use of the phrase “honorable men” brings this book to mind.”
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You can always tell the honorable men: They are the ones who use their names and don’t evade accountability.
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“You can always tell the honorable men” by their cheap shots.
anonymously posted 1, September 13, 2012 at 3:53 pm
“Use your real name. Somebody told me to do that, and I did.”
That’s a good boy. Just keep marching in lockstep, Matt.
=============================================
I was E5 Navy. What are you?
“Use your real name. Somebody told me to do that, and I did.”
That’s a good boy. Just keep marching in lockstep, Matt.
the laptops of Friends of Wikileaks- American citizens- are being confiscated and searched at the US borders. People put on ‘no fly’ lists for political reasons, etc.